


Trick Or Trouble

by Parker_Haven_Wuornos



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: And Many Jokes about Both, Established Relationship, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Inspired by a Buffy Episode but Joss Whedon isn't valid, Jennifer is Immune, Multi, No accurate timeline we die like men, That tag makes sense in context, Vampires, Very inaccurate whip physics, Werewolves, season fourish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/pseuds/Parker_Haven_Wuornos
Summary: Was that the last party I went to?She wondered, remembering how badly that had gone. After that had been Nathan and Duke’s high school reunion which… also hadn’t gone well.“Nothing like that will happen tonight,” She said to her reflection, as if the conviction in her voice would be enough to make it true.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Dwight/ Seth if you squint, Jennifer Mason/ Jordan McKee
Comments: 14
Kudos: 16





	Trick Or Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> The Haven writers shamelessly stole plots from Buffy Halloween episodes, but not my favorite one, so I'm just righting (writing?) a wrong here. Happy Halloween!

Duke got her with the idea of tradition.

“Halloween parties are tradition in Haven; you have to dress up.”

She wasn’t sure how he got Nathan, but she suspected it was something along the lines of “Audrey’s doing it.”

It was sweet, him using things he knew they liked, things he knew they wanted, to get what _he_ wanted, but really, he could have just said please, and they both would have gone along with it.

“Besides,” He’d said when they’d griped about it together while he was making dinner. “The party’s at the Gull this year; we can’t host and not be in costume.”

Nathan grunted irritably and Duke swung the wooden spoon he’d been stirring their dinner with to wave it at Nathan. “Hey, I remember the days when you used to love dressing up for Halloween.”

“Please tell me there’s photographic evidence of that,” Jennifer said, descending the stairs into the galley.

“Hi, Jennifer,” Duke said with a smile that looked tacked on, “Thanks for knocking.”

“Anytime,” She returned his smile, bouncing on her toes before sliding into the booth next to Nathan.

Jordan came down the stairs a minute later, glaring like she thought the boat was about to attack her. No one said anything to her, because they’d learned by now that it was better not to. She went where Jennifer went, and she didn’t want anyone to comment on it.

“But, to answer your question,” Duke said, “There is,” He rifled around in the bookshelf that hid one of his escape hatches until he found an old yearbook. The well-worn spine opened to the exact page Duke was looking for.

The picture still made him smile, him and Nate, seventeen and just a bit too tall for themselves, both rail thin and wide-eyed, dressed as lumber jackasses, complete with axes, donkey ears, and tails.

Jordan glanced at the picture. “You’re wearing costumes?”

Nathan eyed her and said nothing, but Jordan wasn’t Duke’s ex-girlfriend, so he turned to Audrey. “When did she become part of the group?”

“Since she started following Jennifer around so we don’t have to protect her.”

Jennifer sat up and put her hands on her hips. “I don’t need to be protected!”

“Right,” Nathan said. “You’re very intimidating.”

Jennifer frowned. “Don’t condescend me.”

Jordan leveled her glare at Nathan over Jennifer’s head, and he swallowed audibly.

“No,” He said a little thickly, “Really. You’re very frightening.”

Jennifer beamed.

“Speaking of frightening,” Audrey said, cutting smoothly into the conversation before Jordan could do violence to Nathan. “What are you dressing as?”

“We’re not sure yet, but we’ll come up with something,” Jennifer said cheerfully.

Jordan’s glare slipped off in favor of a deep frown. “What?”

“Our costumes,” Jennifer said.

“We’re… going?”

“Of course! We’re part of the group now.” Jennifer smiled brightly, and though Jordan muttered something Audrey couldn’t quite followed, she seemed to melt a little bit. 

Nathan ducked his head to hide a smile, so he didn’t see the punch Jordan aimed at his arm coming. Aside from jostling him a little, it had no effect.

“Not very satisfying,” Duke said sympathetically to Jordan, who crossed her arms and sulked in a way that would have been a little amusing if she wasn’t so terrifying.

“We’re still thinking about it too,” Audrey said quickly, “But we’ll have it figured out soon.”

The day before the party had the kind of weather people put on brochures for Maine: bright and clear, with leaves so vibrant they almost hurt to look at.

“I hope it holds,” She told Duke as they crossed Main street.

He looked up and considered the sky for a long moment. “It will.”

He never explained how he came up with his meteorological predictions, so Audrey wasn’t sure how much of it was bullshit and luck, but he was usually right.

“I hope it doesn’t,” Nathan grumbled.

Audrey elbowed him. She’d been making a hell of an effort to be supportive, even if dressing up and going to a party wasn’t exactly what she was in the mood for. Mostly she wanted to rest. She, Duke, and Nathan had been running full speed dealing with the amplified and newly created troubles for weeks, and the relative lull for the past week had been nice. Suspicious, but nice.

“How long has this place been here?” Nathan asked, staring at the storefront.

“It pops up once a year around this time,” Duke said, “Usually somewhere near here.”

Audrey stared at the store with its garish orange sign and tacky decorations in the window. “Looks… nice.”

Duke laughed. “Tis the season. Let’s go find costumes.”

The inside of the store was no more tasteful than the outside of it, with shelves stacked high with sparkly black pumpkin decorations and plastic skeleton creatures with bones in all the wrong places. It was hard to decide what to look at with so many different things calling for her attention.

“Hey Audrey,” Duke called.

She turned towards him and jumped back when faced with an eerie clown face, dripping in blood.

She might have let out the smallest shriek, but she would have sooner cut off her hand than admit it.

Instead, she swatted Duke on the arm as he lowered the mask. “Bastard.”

He beamed. “So, you’re still afraid of clowns.”

“Fuck you.”

“So that’s a no Mr. Murders the clown for a costume?” Duke asked, still trying to push her buttons.

“Definitely a no,” She grumbled.

“What about this?” He asked, pulling another costume from the rack.

Nathan snorted. “Officer Handsome? Really?”

If Audrey were in a generous mood, she would say that it was a reasonable approximation of a police uniform, if they made them in a sleeveless slim fit. Since she was not in a generous mood, it looked like an outfit for a cheap stripper, and she told him so. “Not even a nice one,” She added. “A really, really discounted stripper.”

“Hilarious,” Duke said dryly, but he set the costume aside. He pulled a costume off the shelf and threw it at Nathan. “Here, Nate, this suits you.”

Nathan looked at it and looked back at Duke with the singularly irritated look that Audrey found heartwarming; Nathan only looked at Duke like that. “A pig. Funny.”

Duke certainly thought so. Not in the mood to take sides, Audrey ignored them.

“Speaking of dressing as a cop for Halloween,” Duke said. “I used to go as Nathan when we were in school. Do you remember that?”

“Vividly,” Nathan replied, his face stony.

“I got really into it,” Duke went on to Audrey, ignoring Nathan’s increasing irritation, which only served to increase the irritation further.

“Too into it,” Nathan said.

“No, I was—”

“You went home with my dad,” Nathan said.

“Oh, yeah, well—”

“He didn’t notice for _three hours_.”

“Ah.”

Audrey sucked a breath through her teeth, both cringing and trying not to laugh. The worst part was that she could picture it all perfectly.

“I mean, you didn’t have to just wait at school,” Duke said. “You could have gone home.”

“That’s so sad,” Jennifer said, appearing at Duke’s elbow. “I mean that’s—” She cut off at Nathan’s look.

“Anyway, have you picked out costumes yet?” She asked. “Do you have a theme?”

“It’s hard enough getting them to dress up. Getting them to agree on a theme would be impossible. How’s yours?” Duke jerked his chin towards Jordan, who was listening to an employee describe different types of facial prosthetics and makeup.

“Reluctantly getting into the spirit of things,” Jennifer said, bouncing on her toes.

“And you?” Audrey asked, more to be polite and to postpone the inevitable costume choosing.

“Loving it.” Jennifer smiled even wider and held her bag out. “I’m all set, and Jordan is just finishing up.”

Nathan wandered further into the store and Audrey was almost glad, not because she didn’t want him around—she usually did—but because she thought this would only be more humiliating for both of them if they were watching each other go through it.

“I envy you,” Audrey said sincerely. She desperately wanted this to be over with, or not to have to do it at all.

But Duke’s face flickered and her heart skipped, so she forced a smile; she was doing this for him.

“Well,” Jennifer said, only slightly awkwardly. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Audrey waved and watched her walk away, then she turned to Duke, keeping the smile firmly in place. “Help me look?”

“Absolutely.”

As much as Audrey generally hated shopping—trying things on was a hassle and honestly who had time for that anyway?—costume shopping was a little different and not quite as awful. It was, at least, easier to make it into a joke, and posing for Duke’s opinion was much better than when she’d first arrived in Haven and had to do it in front of the Teagues, for lack of better friends. Given the rather… haphazard state of the store, she would have liked to avoid the fitting rooms, but the costumes ranged from elaborate and remarkably historical accurate to fetish gear, and Audrey was not about to risk taking home the wrong one.

So she swallowed a groan, squared her shoulders, and shut the curtain behind her, picking a random costume off the pile to start off what would probably be a moderately funny montage if her life was a sitcom.

It turned out to be a long, Grecian gown thing that claimed it could turn her into the “the goddess of love”, but when she walked out, Duke cringed.

“You look like lady justice. I’m having golem flashbacks.”

Audrey retreated without a word and picked another costume, this time a whimsical blue dress and apron and a neat black headband.

“Fitting,” Duke said.

“What, because we’re all mad here?”

“I would make a hell of a hatter, but I meant more backstory stuff—”

“Whose backstory?” She asked. “Mine or any of the ones that came before me?”

“My point exactly; stranded in a strange place, figuring out who you are—”

“Weird people always being cryptic and strange?”

“Exactly! See, it’s perfect.”

“Yeah, no,” Audrey said. She returned to the fitting room and picked a new costume.

This time when she stepped out, Nathan was sitting next to Duke and she thought his jaw would hit the floor.

Then again, she probably should have guessed that a vintage nurse’s uniform would have that effect on him.

“It’s nice,” Nathan said, a little too fast, a little too enthusiastic for him. “You look, I mean, uh—”

He stopped, and she and Duke breathed matching sighs of relief. 

“Right, I’m going to—”

“Yep.”

“Understandable.”

The next couple were maybes: a pirate costume that got an enthusiastic yes from Duke and an ornery no from Nathan, and a generic witch costume that inspired only shrugs from both of them.

The last one was something she’d picked up as a joke and then never set down. It was the complete opposite of everything she usually wore, where she was practical to a fault, sensible from her comfortable shoes to her easily removable layers in case it got warm later in the day, this was elaborate, decorative.

And honestly, it was kind of beautiful. Feeling oddly self-conscious, she carefully stepped into the soft purple princess dress, which hovered in the vague fantasy-historical period that wrapped up elements from King Arthur to Shakespeare to Queen Victoria.

“Don’t laugh,” She called, before taking a deep breath and stepping out of the fitting room.

On the bright side, they didn’t laugh.

The downside was that neither of them said anything for a very long moment.

“Oookay,” She said, turning around, deciding that the whole costume idea—and Halloween in general—was terrible and she should probably just pick up a graveyard shift at work. Honestly, there might be troubles on Halloween so she should be on the lookout—

They were both up in a flash. Nathan grabbed her arm, pulling her back. He still didn’t say anything, instead just nodding and swallowing once as if he _might_ speak, and then not doing it.

“That’s good,” Duke said. “It’s really good.”

“I look—”

“Good,” He said again, voice low and—for once—sincere. “It’s different, but that’s the point.”

“The point is to look ridiculous?” Audrey asked, plucking at the full skirt.

“You don’t,” Nathan said.

Duke pushed past Nathan to put both hands on her shoulders, filling her vision. “The fun part is going as something you aren’t, being different for a night. Have fun for once in your life, Audrey Parker.”

She really tried to glare at him, or even grimace, but it faltered into a smile. “Fine. Just this once.”

And Duke beamed, which reminded her again why she was doing this.

After she reemerged from the fitting room as her practical, average self again, she looked at them, “Are you ready?”

“I’m all set,” Nathan said. “Left it at the counter.”

“What did you—”

Nathan gave Duke a glare that was rendered ineffective by how much he was blushing. “It’s a surprise.”

Duke smiled broadly. “Noted.”

They had to wait in line to pay. Lines weren’t common in Haven; typically there weren’t enough people for anything to get backed up, and somewhere between the giant pressure bubble and the volcano popping up in the middle of town, people had decided that it was better not to congregate in large groups.

The cashier was the same bored-looking teenager that had pointed Audrey to the fitting room earlier. He didn’t seem concerned with the line; he moved at his own pace, passively grumbling his corporate-mandated lines as if there was someone standing behind him pulling a string for each phrase.

“God, forty-nine dollars?” Nathan asked when it was his turn.

The teenager looked at him blankly. “Discount costume bin is over there.” He pointed at a cardboard box labeled ‘Ghost Costumes’ that appeared to be full of old sheets.

“Hilarious,” Nathan muttered, handing over his credit card.

Audrey was almost embarrassed as she set the princess dress on the counter, but the cashier didn’t even glance at it before reciting her total to her. She paid and took the bag, holding it tight as if it were something shameful.

She’d been more casual about buying sex toys. Way more casual. 

It wasn’t until she and Nathan had emerged from the store that she realized Duke hadn’t followed, and she’d never seen him grab a costume.

“Do you know what—”

“He didn’t say.”

“Should we be worried?”

Nathan shrugged. “Probably not.”

He appeared minutes later, carrying a bag and whistling happily, which made Audrey very suspicious. As he walked ahead of them, Audrey grabbed Nathan’s sleeve to slow him down.

“I’m very worried.”

This time, Nathan didn’t disagree with her.

The next day, Audrey was actually, if hesitantly, excited for the party. For the first time since coming to Haven, she asked to leave work early, and given that Dwight was also going to the party, he wasn’t about to say no.

Nathan stayed to make sure things would be okay for the guys on the graveyard shift, promising that he would meet her at the Gull later.

She may or may not have bribed one of the guys on duty to make sure he went.

At home, she laid out the dress with more care than she’d ever paid a piece of clothing in her life. As she got ready, she fleetingly wished she’d kept Lexie’s long curls, which suited the dress better, but the memory of the upkeep routine squashed the thought immediately. She would make do with what she had.

The effect, once she was done, was actually rather nice. Her hair was half pinned back and left to brush her shoulders, the flower crown Jennifer had bullied her into borrowing placed carefully on top. She debated shoes for long enough that she heard the first guests arriving downstairs, and finally decided on the silver heels Dave had given her for her birthday.

_Was that the last party I went to?_ She wondered, remembering how badly that had gone. After that had been Nathan and Duke’s high school reunion which… also hadn’t gone well.

“Nothing like that will happen tonight,” She said to her reflection, as if the conviction in her voice would be enough to make it true.

As she began to descend the stairs to where the party was building into full swing, she realized she’d timed it perfectly so that Nathan and Duke were standing at the bottom, and they caught the full glory of her arrival.

If she were just a little more vain, she might have felt extremely smug about the way both of their jaws nearly unhinged.

It was almost enough to make up for how ridiculous they both looked. 

Nathan, to his credit, really did look pretty good. The vintage adventurer look suited him, except that she could tell his intention was Indiana Jones, but with all his lanky sincerity, he’d ended up more Milo Thatch.

With a whip.

All she had to do was look at it and smile and he flushed to his hairline. It was tempting to make any of the many, many jokes that came to mind, but she was concerned that he might catch fire if she did, so she let them all be implied, and turned her attention to Duke.

As usual, they were a study in contrasts. Nathan had chosen white and warm browns, old-school and classic. Duke was wearing all black, something she’d never seen before. His jeans and shirt were tight enough that when she looked at him, she thought her blush might rival Nathan’s. He’d added an almost baroque-looking coat and more eyeliner than she’d worn in the last year to complete the look.

“A vampire?” She asked.

“Not just any vampire, Audrey,” Duke chided, only lisping slightly through his fangs. “I’m—”

“Alastair Nightshade!” Jennifer was practically shrieking as she darted up behind Duke. “That’s _so_ funny. I mean, it would be funnier if the book wasn’t some kind of cursed omen of doom from my homeworld but, still, funny.”

Audrey didn’t bother pointing out that the book itself wasn’t a cursed omen, the book was just the form the omen was taking, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except finding another fucking drink because Duke, one of the loves of her life and general asshole, was at this party dressed like a character from her favorite trashy vampire romance novel.

And she was _into it._

The shame would never end. She would have to move. She would have to leave the country. Maybe she could find the remains of the barn and bury her head in them in the hopes she could steal someone else’s memories. Or taste in books.

Duke, of course, could tell. She could see from the stupid grin on his face that he knew everything she was thinking and was thrilled about it.

A drink entered her field of vision and she downed it before looking at the person who’d offered it. When she did look, _person_ seemed like a bit of a stretch.

Jordan’s clothing wasn’t much: shorts, tights, a leather bomber jacket with a massive fur collar, but her usual gloves now had fur on the back, and her face…

“Wow,” Audrey said, genuinely impressed.

“Jen did theatre in college,” Jordan explained, and Audrey wondered if she was embarrassed at all beneath the elaborate prosthetics, fake fur, and yellow contact lenses. “She thought it would be cool.”

“It _is_ cool,” Audrey said.

“Don’t compliment me.” Jordan took a sip of her drink and watched Duke and Jen discuss _Unstake My Heart_ with a look of mild disgust, which for Jordan was practically affectionate. She had come around to Duke being allowed to live—entirely because Jennifer liked him—but Audrey doubted she’d ever like him.

Which was too bad, because Audrey thought that Jordan could like any of them, it would be Duke, who had been the least shitty to her, not that that was saying much. But she was—again, entirely due to Jen’s influence and much to Jordan’s own chagrin—warming up to them little by little, and Audrey had to admit that she was starting to like her, under the prickliness.

So she was being entirely genuine when she said, “You look really good.”

And she thought Jordan was being honest when she replied, “And you look very… princessy.”

Audrey glanced down at her gown and shrugged, feeling childish and awkward next to Jordan.

“Jen wanted to do a theme,” Jordan said after a minute.

Audrey looked over at Jennifer, who was wearing a puffy blouse, black corset that Audrey was pretty sure belonged to Jordan, a tattered brown skirt and a long, red cape. She had what looked like a hunting knife in a leather sheath strapped on a belt at her waist.

“Little red and the wolf,” Audrey said, “Cute.”

“You didn’t go with a theme?”

Audrey looked between herself, Nathan, and Duke. “Not really, unless you count ‘things that appeared in my weird fever dream last week’”

Jordan laughed and took a sip of her drink, glancing around at the deck, which was rapidly filling with a wild assortment of costumes. “Cool party,” She said.

“Yeah.”

It was awkward for another beat until Jordan waved at Dwight—wearing the same cowboy costume he’d been in when he rescued them from the haunted house fiasco last year—and she ducked into the crowd to talk to him.

Free from whatever strange social obligation that was, Audrey stepped towards Nathan, who was half-hiding under the stairs and watching everyone else talk.

“Fun,” Audrey said, a little too brightly.

Nathan smiled woodenly. “Yeah.”

“Hey, did Rafferty get back to you about the—”

“Audrey Parker if you are talking about work right now—” Duke cut her off and left Jennifer to join them.

“It was just a question!” Audrey threw her hands up in surrender, barely remembering her drink in time to keep it from spilling.

“You are here to have fun,” Duke insisted. “You both look like you’re facing a firing squad.”

“I’ve had more fun facing firing squads,” Nathan replied.

“You’re not even trying!” Duke whined. “This is—”

“I’m sorry,” Audrey cut him off, “I just cannot take you seriously in that outfit.”

“Really?” Duke arched one eyebrow, turning the full force of his overly lined eyes on her.

Okay. Fine. The effect was not awful.

God, she did not want him to know she felt that way.

“Are you sure?” He asked, ducking his head and crowding closer to her, backing her against one of the support poles that held up her deck. “Because I can sense your attraction, Veronica, I know—”

“STOP!” She sidestepped away, stumbling over her long skirt, her face too hot. “That’s just—That’s—”

Nathan was laughing. Not his usual low chuckle, but actual, full bellied howls that she hadn’t seen from him… possibly ever. She was pretty sure that Duke was the only person who could make him laugh like that, and once upon a time, that thought would have made her jealous.

Now it only made her want to ditch the party and head upstairs to leave the costumes—and characters—behind.

“You like it,” Duke said. “Some part of you is into it.”

“I was more into you as Santa,” She grumbled.

Nathan opened his mouth and she silenced him with a glare. “Don’t.”

His mouth snapped shut audibly.

Duke looked ready to start again, but Nathan waved him off. “Not everyone’s into your freaky roleplay shit.”

“Bold words from the guy who brought a whip to the party.”

Nathan flushed again, and Audrey indulged in a moment of wondering whether it was in embarrassment or indignation.

With Nathan and Duke, it was usually both. 

Eager to stop thinking about Nathan and whips, Audrey looked around. “So, what now? “

“Parker, do you not know what parties are for?” Nathan asked.

“Do you?” Duke asked.

Grimacing, Audrey chose to ignore them both. “I’m going to go talk to—” She gestured vaguely somewhere in the crowd and left them before they could ask who she was pointing at.

She settled eventually on going to say hello to Gloria, who was leaning against the bar wearing her lab coat over regular clothes.

As she was waving to get Gloria’s attention, Audrey nearly tripped over someone wearing a sheet.

“Audrey!”” The Ghost said in a voice Audrey was sure she recognized but couldn’t place. “How are you?”

“Good,” She said, with a smile that would have been too wide if she’d been greeting someone she knew and loved. In this context she was pretty sure she might as well have said she didn’t know who the hell she was talking to.

“It’s me,” The ghost said. “Seth?”

“SETH!” Audrey said, too enthusiastically. “Oh, a ghost. That’s… funny. Because of your show.”

She wouldn’t have said that a sheet with two holes cut int it could convey sarcasm, but somehow Seth was managing.

“I Didn’t know you were back in Haven,” Audrey said, taking an awkward sip of her drink.

“Got here just in time to buy a costume.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Anderson dumped me,” Seth said abruptly.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Over Seth’s head, Audrey caught Duke’s eye and tried to emote _help me_ at him.

For once, Duke took pity on her and showed up, handing her a suspiciously orange drink and smiling broadly at Seth.

Gripping his hand through the sheet, Duke pulled him into a complex handshake ritual she had no idea they’d had time—or inclination—to work out.

“Welcome back,” Duke said.

“Didn’t think I’d come back.”

“That’s the thing about Haven; if you’re supposed to come back, leaving doesn’t stick.” He smiled and Audrey reached for him, squeezing his hand gently and barely resisting the urge to pull him into a kiss.

As if pulled by the gravity of a rare sincere moment, Nathan walked up next to them. He didn’t quite touch either of them, but he hovered behind Audrey, warm and solid at her back, and easily within Duke’s reach.

There was something steadying about it, as if the pulse of the party faded to the background and for a second it was just another sunset on the deck of the Gull, looking out over the water.

_We can face anything like this,_ She thought.

In retrospect, she ought to have realized she was jinxing it, but the party was going so well, and after a couple glasses of Halloween juice—the fluorescent orange punch Duke had made earlier which tasted like what would happen if a tangerine fucked battery acid—she was feeling flushed and happy.

Friends brushed by her and told her she looked beautiful, and rather than prickling at the compliment she blushed and thanked them, and once even twirled a little, something that she had never done before and was going to blame on the Halloween juice if anyone tried to ask her about it later.

When she stepped into the Gull for refills, she caught sight of Dwight and Seth talking animatedly at a table in the corner, and on the dance floor, Jordan was holding Jennifer close and staring at her like she’d invented starlight.

“Would you like me to squire you on the dance floor?” Duke asked, leaning low so his breath brushed against her ear.

God it would have been so easy to accept if he wasn’t still doing that stupid half-accent that was nothing at all like the Alastair Nightshade from her book and ridiculously charming anyway.

“No, I’ll be squiring myself to the bar,” She said, twitching her skirt so it didn’t get in the way so much while she worked through the crowd.

She smiled at Nora in her cute but functional cat costume and set their glasses down. “Three more.”

“You better slow down on these,” She said. “I hear they’re made with some illegal Tibetan something or other.”

Audrey tossed a look over her shoulder where Duke had joined whatever conversation Seth and Dwight were having.

“I’m sure I can handle it,” Audrey said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Seth’s had more than me.”

“His funeral,” Nora said.

As if her words had been a curse, Seth suddenly started choking, his breath coming in loud, halting gasps that she heard over the music and conversation.

She left her drinks at the bar and ran over to him.

By the time she got to him, his body was hitting the ground with a light, final thud. There was a bare second of quiet.

And then all Haven hell broke loose.

It was a party, so it had always been loud. It was a Halloween party, so it had always been colorful and full of strangely dressed people.

But now it was deafening, and the colors were too bright, like someone had twisted the lens on the world and brought it into a focus so intense it was _wrong._

_Trouble_. Audrey felt it in that low, hidden place in her mind, the one that led her towards troubled people and deeper into Haven’s secrets.

This was a trouble and it was a bad one.

Duke was in front of her, he was safe, staring at the chaos in confusion.

Nathan wasn’t with them; he was still outside. He could take care of himself until they were able to get out.

Seth was…

Dwight was kneeling next to Seth, alarmed but safe.

It wasn’t until her eyes scanned over the dance floor where she’d last seen Jennifer and Jordan that she realized exactly what this trouble had done.

Because where Jordan and Jennifer had been dancing, there was now a huge, vaguely humanoid wolf creature in a leather jacket and torn black gloves, ferociously protecting a cowering Jennifer from some kind of swamp creature.

That, at least, hadn’t changed.

But it seemed like everyone else had.

They had all become their costumes, the strange, the grotesque, the comical, all of them real and in person, and wrecking Duke’s bar.

And she knew Duke had been hit too, because he didn’t seem to care at all.

She looked at the eclectic monster movie that was unfolding in front of her and took a long, deep breath. Then she took another because the first one didn’t work. Finally, she squared her shoulders and hid behind a table.

All told, it probably only lasted a couple minutes, five at the most. The demons and monsters and zombies (oh my) found the doors and fled into the night, which was its own problem, but for now, Audrey needed a moment.

“Are you well?”

No, she very much wasn’t, but hearing Duke doing that stupid voice was _not_ making her feel better.

He was staring down at her with an expression that looked all wrong on his face. It was arrogant, sharp, and appraising, as if he was laughing at a joke she hadn’t gotten.

“Duke?” She asked hesitantly, even if she knew what the answer would be.

“I’m not a duke,” He answered, the not-quite-accent making Audrey’s lip curl like a bad smell. He leaned in closer, his words barely louder than a whisper. “But when I’m with her, I’m a king.”

“With who now?” Audrey asked, and she knew it was stupid. She didn’t have time to care about this, and it was a trouble so it would go away—she would make it go away—but the idea of him saying romantic shit about someone other than her and Nathan made her stomach flip over itself uncomfortably.

“My Veronica,” He said. “My heart, my love,”

Audrey looked away from him, trying very hard not to throw up in her mouth. “You’re… Listen, your name is Duke. There is no Veronica. You’re—”

“You’re lying!”

“No, listen, there are these things called troubles—” But Audrey knew it wouldn’t work. She’d read _Unstake My Heart_ cover to cover three times, and she knew better than to think that anything could talk Alastair Nightshade out of his love for the completely average and yet utterly compelling Veronica.

“I’ll find her,” Duke/Alastair vowed. “I’ll save her from whichever of those hellbeasts has her captured and break whatever spell has done this to us.” 

“What the hell—”

Audrey was thrilled to have a reason to look at something other than Duke. “Seth?”

He looked down at himself, then studied his hand carefully, then looked down at his body, which was still very dead on the floor. “So there is life after death.”

Audrey jumped up and threw herself at him, crashing through his transparent form and nearly breaking her nose on the wall behind him.

Dwight caught her, holding her steady. She pulled away and looked up at him. He looked about the same, his face drawn in confusion, his hat a little askew.

“Listen,” She said. “You aren’t a cowboy. Your name is—”

“Thanks Audrey, but I know what my name is,” Dwight said.

“You… what?”

Dwight shrugged. “I guess this one missed me.”

“It didn’t miss _me_ ,” Seth muttered. “I’m dead.”

“You’re a ghost,” Audrey corrected. “Because you were dressed as one.”

“So why don’t I want to head west in search of cattle and gold?” Dwight asked.

“I don’t know… maybe your costume was too general?”

Dwight snorted. “Then why is _he_ transformed? You don’t get more generic than sheet ghost.”

“Hey!”

“Boys!” Audrey snapped. She didn’t have time for—

At the sound of her raised voice, a low snarl rumbled through the bar.

On the other side of the room, amid the ruins of the dance floor decorations, the werewolf—Jordan—was still crouched, hackles raised, and its bright yellow eyes were fixed on them.

“Careful,” Jennifer called. “She’s a little… temperamental right now.”

“So not everything changes,” Audrey called back.

Dwight, at least, laughed.

“It’s alright, Jordan,” Jennifer said calmly. “They don’t want to hurt me. They’re my—”

When Audrey and Dwight stepped closer, Jordan snarled and lunged towards them.

“NO!”

When Jennifer shouted, Jordan halted and turned around, ears pricked in alarm.

“Stay back, beast!” Duke shouted, standing with a lot of confidence for a guy who brought fangs to a werewolf fight.

“Duke, don’t!” Audrey hissed. “That’s still Jordan in there.”

“I’m not a duke and I don’t know anyone named Jordan.” His lips curled back to show his fangs, which did very little to intimidate the ten-foot-tall, muscle-bound, hairy were-Jordan in front of them.

Audrey pinched the bridge of her nose. Already this was turning into one of _those_ troubles.

“Both of you, stop,” Jennifer ordered, and remarkably, Jordan and Duke both relaxed a little. “What’s the plan, Audrey?”

Audrey had not quite gotten past the freaking out stage of trouble solving, so she didn’t have a plan yet. She didn’t even have anything that started to look like one.

Thankfully, she was rescued from having to answer, because Gloria walked in, rumpled but unharmed and thoroughly irritated.

“Anybody alive in here?”

“Hi, Gloria,” Dwight said.

Duke’s eyes narrowed but he didn’t say anything to her.

“Happened in here too, huh?” Gloria asked, looking around and seeming only mildly interested in the massive, growling werewolf in the middle of the room.

“Yep.”

“Sorry it took me so long to get here, I was dealing with some clowns outside.”

“Clowns?” Audrey asked and her stomach twisted.

“Nathan and some other people.”

“Nathan?” Audrey asked carefully. “Is he—”

“Still an idiot,” Gloria said, and somehow it was reassuring. “Just a different kind.”

She didn’t have to ask what she meant, because Nathan chose that moment to crash through the window and land in front of her.

He flicked his whip, freeing it from whatever he’d wrapped it around so he could swing in. He stood in front of her, holding the whip like a weapon, poised for a fight. “Get behind me! I’ll keep you safe.”

“Yeah, cute,” Audrey said. “She’s harmless, I promise.”

“I know you’re in danger.” Not-Nathan said confidently.

“I can handle it,” Audrey said.

Thankfully, he paused, lowering the whip and Jordan relaxed, laying down front of Jennifer.

“What the hell is he supposed to be?” Nathan asked, jerking his thumb at Duke.

Duke glared. “Alastair Nightshade.”

“Bullshit name,” Nathan said.

Duke gasped like he’d been slapped and took a step towards Nathan. “You have no idea the danger you’ve unleashed, pathetic human. You think you can fight me? I am nightmares, I am the blood that races through your veins when you feel fear, I am poison, I am death itself—”

“And I’m getting bored,” Nathan said. He lazily flicked the whip across the floor not quite a direct threat, but challenging all the same. 

Audrey laughed. She was past the point of being afraid. She was just tired, annoyed, and honestly, just a little amused.

It was fucking ridiculous.

“Um, not to interrupt,” Jennifer said, looking at Audrey like she wanted to offer her some of her anti-psychotics. “But… why aren’t Gloria and Dwight their costumes?”

It hadn’t even occurred to Audrey to wonder; Gloria seemed so unflappable; half the time Audrey forgot she wasn’t immune to the troubles. As much as she would have liked to have spent a few more seconds in hysterics, she really didn’t have time, so she flipped on the part of her brain that solved troubles, and got ready to work.

She looked at Dwight and Gloria, and then at Seth. “Dwight, that’s your costume from last year, right?”

He frowned. “I wear this every year it’s…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but his face folded into the just barely not neutral pensive expression she’d come to associate with his daughter. “Yeah. I wore it last year.”

Gloria’s costume was her own lab coat with a nametag pinned to it that said “the guy who invented zombies”. Already she was seeing a pattern.

“Seth,” She asked, “Where’d you get your sheet?”

“The costume store,” He said, “The one on Main.”

“Us too,” Audrey said, gesturing at Nathan and Duke, who were glaring suspiciously at each other.

“That’s where Jordan and I got the prosthetics and the fake fur for her gloves,” Jennifer said. Jordan had laid down in front of her and she was absentmindedly stroking her head.

“Troubled costume store?” Seth said.

“Troubled costume seller,” Audrey guessed. “Who’s up for a field trip?”

“What makes something… troubled?” Nathan asked.

“It’s…” Audrey paused, frowned, took a breath to explain and then let it out again. She’d never really had to explain the troubles before. Most people in Haven were relieved to hear they existed, because it made them feel less insane. Somehow she didn’t think bizzarro Nathan would have the same reaction.

God, maybe this was why no one told her anything.

“The troubles are—”

“It’s weird shit,” Gloria said. “When weird shit happens, that’s a trouble.”

“I have encountered many oddities on my travels,” Nathan said sagely. “You will need my help to defeat this troubled person.”

“I really won’t,” Audrey said, but she could tell some part of him was still Nathan, because he clearly wasn’t about to let her go alone.

“What you call troubles are so much more than that,” Duke said, taking Audrey’s hand and pulling her close to him, his voice low and intense. “There is a dark world out there, inhabited by ghouls and vampires. It will consume you unless you’re protected.”

“I… what?”

“I’m going with you. Perhaps the source of this… trouble is also what stole my Veronica.”

“You don’t have a—Fine, sure you can come too.”

“We’ll help,” Dwight said.

“Who’s we?” Seth asked.

“You and me,” Dwight answered, half smiling.

“Uh, I don’t—”

“C’mon, Seth,” Dwight teased. “I thought you sought the darkness wherever it leads you?”

Seth blushed. “Look, man, I—”

“There are monsters I don’t even know the names of out there,” Audrey interrupted. “And I’m into this stuff. You might know something we need.”

Seth sighed. “Fine. I want to film it though.”

“Hell no,” Gloria and Dwight said at the same time.

Seth grumbled something under his breath, but when Dwight patted him on the back and led him towards the door—giving the snarling Jordan a wide berth—he didn’t seem to mind.

“I think we’ll stay here,” Jennifer said. “I don’t think Jordan can fit in a car.”

“I don’t think I want to try,” Audrey replied. “Just keep yourself safe. We don’t know what William might be up to.”

Jennifer smiled fondly at Jordan. “Somehow I’m not worried.”

Audrey smiled and headed for the door. “Gloria?”

“I’m off the clock, so I’m staying where the gin is. Have a nice night.”

The drive towards Main street was both strange and fairly awkward. Nathan was suspicious of his own car—commandeered by Dwight because it had the most room—and kept anxiously curling and uncurling his whip. Duke spent the ride in silence, staring broodily out the window, which was fine because Audrey thought she might start wishing for death if she had to hear him arguing with Nathan in that accent.

Seth was struggling to stay in the car. Unless he focused, he would slide through the seats and once—very unpleasantly—through Audrey and end up floating outside, staring at them in confused horror before going through the door to sit again.

Outside the confines of the awkwardly quiet truck, Audrey saw the mess of the streets as they got closer to populated areas.

She saw a child-sized superhero throwing fire at an equally tiny mummy that was attacking him, while a girl in a princess dress not much different from Audrey’s cowered under a tree.

“This is—” She didn’t finish the sentence.

“This is powerful magic,” Duke said. “Dark, evil magic, like the evil I fight in myself every day as I struggle to be worthy of my—”

“Your Veronica,” Nathan said. “We get it. You’re in love.”

Audrey wanted to call it ironic coming from him, but Nathan wasn’t himself enough to understand the joke.

In fact, as she saw the abundance of costumes outside, she got worried. For all she knew, there was someone out there dressed as Veronica, maybe a few someones, and god only knew how Duke would react if he met one.

They had to abandon the car a few blocks from their destination. The streets were too full of miniature monsters and terrified civilians.

“This is a warzone,” Nathan said. “What the hell is going on here, lady?”

Audrey sighed. “It’s called a trouble it’s… it’s like magic.”

“I believe in science, in history. There’s no such thing as magic.”

“I have lived for hundreds of years,” Duke said. “Your history is not what you think. There is a shadow history, a darkness—”

“Audrey, please make him stop,” Dwight said.

“I would if I could.”

Duke glared at them, his lips curling away to show his fangs, which made him look more silly than menacing, but Audrey knew that saying so would only inspire another monologue about darkness and evil and his tortured soul.

“C’mon, let’s just get to the store.”

Seth floated along next to them, going straight through trees and overturned garbage cans. “What do we think we’re going to get there? The store’s closed.”

“Employee records,” Audrey said. “I didn’t get the guy’s name at the shop, and we need to find him.”

“Won’t it be locked?”

Audrey arched one eyebrow.  
“Right, moving on.”

The street was wrecked when they got to it. One of the newspaper dispensers was on fire, and a kid in a Mike Myers mask was standing ominously at the end of the block, a knife that didn’t look plastic held casually in his hand.

“Am I going to die?” Seth asked.

“Great men don’t fear death,” Nathan said grandly.

“You’re already dead,” Dwight pointed out, slightly more helpfully.

“Right, thanks for that reminder. I’m comforted.”

Dwight smiled pleasantly, and Audrey wasn’t sure whether he thought he’d actually brought comfort, or found it funny that he obviously hadn’t.

“He’s just a kid,” Audrey said. “We can’t kill him.”

“He’s a kid,” Dwight said. “I think we can take him.”

They moved forward, keeping their eyes on Mini Myers as they got closer to the store.

The newspaper dispenser released another cough of smoke and they stepped away from it, except for Duke who barely noticed.

Audrey squinted at him through watering eyes. “You can breathe smoke?”

“I don’t need to breathe,” He replied, as if it was a skill he was proud of acquiring.

“Right,” Audrey grumbled.

“Guys,” Seth said. “Where’d he go?”

“Who—”

But she realized as she got a little further from the smoke. The kid was gone.

It was a jump scare worthy of the best horror movies. They were all quiet for three long seconds as they scanned the streets, looking for the kid. Just when Audrey was starting to think he’d gone, he appeared next to her, brandishing a knife and swinging it towards her chest.

The sound of a whip cracking almost distracted her from her inevitable demise, but not quite enough that she actually saw Nathan swing from one of the shop signs.

She did feel his arm wrap around her middle and pull her away, and she did feel the rough landing when it happened.

“What the—”

“Don’t worry,” Nathan said, leaning over her. “I saved you.” 

She tried to twist away from him, just to get a little space. This was not _her_ Nathan and there was something eerie and unnatural about him. He talked too much. “Get off of me.”

She pushed on his chest and he fell back, looking mildly confused.

“I rescued you,” He said again, sounding like an actor trying to cue his costar for her next line.

Audrey ignored him, turning back to where Dwight had his hand against the kid’s forehead, arm locked so he couldn’t get any closer as he swung wildly with his knife, managing to slash the heavy fabric of Dwight’s coat.

Audrey was still trying to form a plan when Seth— _Seth_ —ran forward and flying kicked the kid. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t solid, and only managed to fly right through him and end up hovering over the ground a few feet away.

The sensation of having a ghost pass through him distracted the kid for long enough that Audrey was able to push him down and pull the knife out of his hand.

Not knowing what else to do with it, she handed the knife to Nathan, who at least had a bag he could keep it in.

“Don’t worry,” He said, “I was trained in Esgrima Criolla in my time as a captive during—” He looked dramatically into the middle distance—“The war.”

“Is that cultural appropriation?” Seth asked. “Sounds offensive.”

“Is it just me or is he getting more ridiculous?” Audrey asked.

“Hard to say.” Dwight pointed to the shop down the street and turned to go. 

“When I have found Veronica and restored the world from this evil magic,” Duke said, “I will challenge you to a duel to test your skill.”

“Why wait?” Nathan asked. “I have time.”

“No, you don’t,” Audrey snapped. “Come on, the store’s right there.”

Someone else had beaten them to shattering the store front, which was really a pity; Audrey had been looking forward to getting to break something. Thankfully, the vandals had left most of the store intact, and the employee documents folder Audrey found in the back was completely untouched.

She pulled out the driver’s license copies and studied them.

“That’s Clark Marshall,” Dwight said. “He’s troubled.”

“This trouble?”

Dwight shook his head. “The guard helped him out a couple months back, some kind of plant trouble.”

“What about Kyle Martin?” Audrey asked, holding license photo. She squinted down at it. “Hey, I think that’s the kid that checked us out earlier.”

She held the photo out to Seth. “Does he look familiar?”

“Yeah, he sold me the sheet.”

“Probably our guy,” Dwight said. “Got an address?”

Audrey squinted at the blurry photocopy. “It’s from out of state.”

“Pay information’s over here,” Seth called, pointing at a labeled filing cabinet. “Maybe that has something.”

Dwight crossed the room and pulled out a pocketknife to start messing with the lock, and Audrey wandered out of the back room to make sure Nathan and Duke hadn’t decided to have that duel.

Nathan was studying the array of what had probably once been fake weapons, which now gleamed, threateningly real, on the walls. Thus far, he hadn’t picked anything up, but she would have to keep an eye on him; if he grabbed a gun, he could kill Dwight.

Duke was on the other side of the room, staring at a costume display. “What is this supposed to be?” He asked. He brandished a costume package at her and she took it from him to study the label.

_Romantic Vampire._

It wasn’t the exact costume Duke was wearing—he had clearly combined different costumes to create Alastair’s look—but it was close. “It’s a Halloween costume,” Audrey said, trying to be gentle. “Like the one you’re wearing—”

But that wasn’t what Duke had been asking about.

He grabbed her, pushing her against the wall abruptly. “Do your people not understand what I am? What my kind is? We are murder itself, danger incarnate—”

Behind Duke, Nathan snapped the whip so it wrapped around Duke’s wrist and pulled him back. “Let her go.”

“Okay, that was kind of hot,” Audrey muttered under her breath.

Duke gripped the whip and pulled it out of Nathan’s hands, tossing it aside. “Are you challenging me?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Audrey muttered. She was debating getting between them or letting them punch it out when Seth floated through the back wall. “We got it.”

A second later, Dwight walked through the door.

“4901 Elm,” He said.

“Do I need to make a joke about it?” She asked, grabbing Duke by the back of his collar and pulling him towards the door.

“Don’t worry, Seth already did.”

She dragged Duke the rest of the way out of the store and released him once they were back on the street.

“We’re not far from Elm,” Dwight said, “But there’s at least twelve blocks of troubled trick or treaters between us and Kyle.”

“We could try to go back to the car,” Audrey suggested without enthusiasm.

“Don’t think it’ll help,” Dwight said.

“So we’re walking?” Audrey glanced down at her shoes and wondered whether it would be worse to keep wearing them or to walk barefoot on the cold and debris-strewn sidewalks.

Dwight gave her a sympathetic look and nodded. “We’re walking.”

The further they got the more inconvenient her costume became. The wide, flowing skirt slowed her down, and the hem got caught in her heels if she had to step backwards, and even if it hadn’t been so cumbersome, it would have still been cold.

_This,_ She thought darkly, _Is why I dress the way I do._ She was never going to let anyone insult her sensible shoes and blazers again.

“Where are the cops?” Audrey asked when they stopped in front of a tree that looked like it had been ripped from its roots and tossed over the road.

Dwight shrugged. “We only had a couple guys on duty and there’s a lot to deal with.”

“And the guard?”

Dwight shrugged. “Some of them were at the party, lots have kids. The ones that don’t are probably dealing with things somewhere else. Come on, we can climb over it.”

As it turned out, everyone else could climb over it, but Audrey’s skirt got caught on the rough bark and snagged, tripping her.

She landed hard, too tangled to stand up. “Damnit,” She hissed, staring at the streaks of blood marring the once beautiful dress.

Duke hissed, staring at the blood seeping through the fabric from scrapes on her knee. “Stay back,” He said. “Stay away from me!”

“Nathan, give me the knife,” Dwight said, holding his hand out. His eyes were fixed on Duke, but they flashed to Audrey’s while they both had the same thought. How much of a vampire was Duke really?

“Who’s Nathan?” Nathan asked, apparently oblivious to the tension. He pulled the knife out of his satchel.

Dwight took it from him and handed it to Audrey. “Think you can cut yourself loose?” He subtly turned so that he could get between her and Duke if needed. 

“Yeah.” She got a little bit of joy out of hacking at the skirt trying to free it from where it was wrapped in bark and branches.

A low sound that didn’t resemble anything Audrey had heard before rumbled from between two of the houses.

“What was that?” Seth asked.

“You tell me and we’ll both know,” Dwight replied, but Audrey could see the tense line of his shoulders, the way he shifted so that Seth was behind him.

She started cutting at the skirt faster.

“Holy fuck,” Seth breathed as the thing emerged from the shadows.

“Not spiders,” Nathan muttered. “Anything but spiders.”

Technically—Although Audrey wouldn’t say this to Nathan, who didn’t seem to remember that he wasn’t afraid of spiders—it wasn’t spiders. It was just one spider.

One spider that was approximately the size of a horse.

“Fuck this,” Nathan said, and he took off, sprinting down the street.

The spider twitched and raced after him, its creepy spider feet clicking against the pavement.

“NATHAN!” Audrey shouted, and with one final slash, cut off the bottom six inches of the skirt, leaving it dirty, tattered, and blissfully calf-length.

Still gripping the knife, she ran after Nathan and the spider. Behind her, she could hear the sound of Dwight’s boots, but she didn’t look back at him.

The spider was closing in on Nathan, and god only knew what it could do to him.

“Nathan!” She shouted again. He didn’t look back, and she had a half-second to wonder what he thought his name was, before she was close enough to the spider to slash its leg with a knife.

She tried very hard not to wonder if someone was going to wake up from this trouble without a limb when the leg cracked under the spider’s weight.

Unfortunately, that didn’t disable it, and now the spider was rounding on her. She swung wildly with the knife, but one errant leg knocked it out of her hand and sent it skittering uselessly down the street.

She had time to wonder why she hadn’t brought her gun—she’d worn her thigh holster to her damn birthday party, why didn’t she have it now?!—before the spider threw her to the ground.

A scream built in her throat, but whatever scraps of dignity she still had held it firmly in place.

_I don’t want to die like this._

As if summoned by her thoughts, a tree branch swung into view, batting the spider away.

Duke, still holding the branch and jabbing at the spider with one hand, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet with the other.

“Run!” He shouted. “I can kill it.”

On the other side of the spider, she saw Nathan slashing it with the knife, some strange moves that vaguely resembled a cross between fencing and Street Fighter keeping him away from the flailing limbs.

She allowed herself half a breath to be happy that they were working together before she grabbed Duke’s arm and pulled him away. “There’s still a person in there, we can’t kill it.”

“We have to run!” Dwight shouted. He was boxing a vaguely goat-like demon creature, and she could see a couple of zombie cheerleaders approaching them threateningly.

She didn’t bother calling out an agreement. She tugged on Duke’s arm, shoving him in front of her before she went back to Nathan and dragged him away from the spider.

They took off at a dead sprint and Audrey thanked whatever divine power existed for her shorter skirt and that one of her lives—probably Sarah—was really good at running in heels.

Still, she was struggling to keep up with three men over six feet tall and Seth, who could float at whatever speed he wanted.

Her breath came in sharp, short gasps, and no amount of adrenaline could cover up how badly her calves and ankles hurt.

“Next house,” Dwight rasped, and some part of her was glad that she wasn’t the only one who was out of breath. Nathan and Duke didn’t seem bothered at all.

Instead of pausing to knock—Audrey didn’t know what kind of nightmare would catch up with them if they stopped—Dwight kept up his run until he crashed straight through the door.

“HOLY FUCK!”

They turned the corner and found the bored teenager from the costume shop on his couch, covered in spilled popcorn and candy. “What the hell?” He gasped. On tv, a shrieking blond woman was getting stabbed by a guy in a mask.

“Kyle Martin?” Audrey asked.

“Yeah? Who the hell are you?”

“Detective Audrey Parker, Haven PD,” She said.

He looked at her, taking in the destroyed gown. “You’re a cop?”

“Yes,” She said. “Are you… Kyle have you heard of the troubles?” She was still catching her breath, the usual speeches she used not quite coming naturally.

“This boy is not a warlock,” Duke interrupted. “He can’t have created the

Kyle gave him a strange look but didn’t acknowledge what he'd said. “Uh, the weird stuff that keeps happening? Like when the meteors fell from the sky?”

“Yeah,” Audrey said. “Like that. That’s what’s happening right now, and we think you’re doing it.”

“I can’t be troubled,” Kyle said. “I’m not from Haven. We moved here from Denver two years ago.”

_Fuck._ “In the last few days has anyone attacked you or grabbed you?” Audrey asked, glancing at Dwight.

“Um… there was a weird guy at the store right after we opened. He bought a clown costume, one of my first sales. After he checked out, he grabbed my arm and said… it’s weird but I think he said, ‘this will be fun’.”

“That bastard,” Audrey muttered. “What were you feeling right then?” She asked. “Emotionally.”

Kyle shrugged. “Uh, creeped out? Bored?”

Neither of those seemed strong enough to bring out a trouble. “What about after that? Did something make you angry or—”

He frowned, glaring sullenly at the carpet. “Uh…”

“Kyle,” Dwight said.

“This man isn’t a warlock,” Duke hissed in her ear.

Audrey pushed him back a little bit. “I know… he’s… uh, the warlock… put a spell on him. To make him do this.”

It was mostly accurate, and it seemed to satisfy Duke, at least for the time being.

“Lady, I don’t believe in all this magic shit,” Nathan said.

“Please just shut up,” She begged. “Kyle, what happened?”

He muttered something but finally looked at her. “I went to a haunted house some guys at school set up, and I brought Annie. One of the things… it was creepy, okay? I only screamed a little, but they all made fun of me and Annie left with some other guy. I was mad. I thought I could survive better in a horror movie than any of them.”

“The bullying triggered the trouble,” Dwight said quietly.

Audrey nodded. “Kyle, what scared you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, just some stupid thing.”

“Kyle…”

“I don’t remember!” He snapped. “Seriously. I was just startled.”

“So what do we do?” Seth asked. “How do we stop this?”

Audrey sighed. She wished she knew. They were all looking at her, even Duke and Nathan who didn’t have any idea what was going on.

She grabbed Kyle and dragged him off of his couch, hauling him to the window. “See that?”

He stared at the destroyed street, the downed power lines and the wrecked cars. “What—”

“You did that Kyle, your trouble. You wanted to prove you could survive a horror movie, so you created one. You created all of them and now who knows how many people are hurt.”

“Oh my god,” He whispered. “I…”

“What was Annie going to be for Halloween?” She asked.

“I… a cat. All of her friends were going as different kinds of cats.”

“Did you sell them their costumes?”

He gulped. “Yeah.”

“How do you think she’s doing with all of this? My friend turned into a werewolf, I bet she’d love to chase a cat around—”

“Audrey?” Dwight asked.

But the part of her brain that did this, the little instinct that knew the troubles better than anyone, was in control now. “What do you think, Kyle? Do you think she’ll make it through the night?”

“I have to go find her,” He said. He ran to a closet and pulled out a baseball bat and tore off towards the door.

He barely stepped over the threshold before Seth vanished.

Duke and Nathan staggered, falling back against the walls nearest them.

“Duke?” Audrey reached for him.

“Seth?” Dwight called. “Seth!”

Duke looked at her and his face softened. “Audrey.” His voice was normal. “On a scale of one to ten, how embarrassing was that?”

And she smiled, because he was lisping like an idiot, and his eyes were soft and familiar, and he was completely himself.

“I’d also like to know how embarrassed I should be,” Nathan said a little weakly.

Audrey helped him stand and linked arms with both of them. “Very. Both of you should be very, very embarrassed.”

Outside, Kyle was looking around, staring at all the monsters who were becoming people again. “What—”

Audrey walked Nathan and Duke outside and stood in front of Kyle. “You needed to prove to yourself that you were brave. Happy Halloween.”

“Right,” He said. “I’m going to… I’m going to text Annie.”

“Don’t forget protection!” Duke called cheerfully, and any tension Audrey had still been holding released.

He was himself again.

Back at the Gull, Dwight took in the wreckage and patted Duke on the shoulder sympathetically. “I’ll come by tomorrow to help.” He turned to Seth, who was still riding the high of being corporeal again. “You have a place to stay?”

“Uh…” Audrey could see the hotel key hanging out of his pocket, but he shook his head. “No. No, I do not.”

Dwight jerked his thumb and Seth toppled the stool he’d been sitting on in his haste to leave with him.

Nathan raised his eyebrows as they walked out but didn’t say anything.

“So how was your night?” Duke asked Jordan, who was sitting a good four feet away from everyone because her gloves had torn when she’d transformed.

“Weird,” She said. “Yours?”

“About the same.”

A slight smile crossed her face. “A vampire Crocker,” She said. “How appropriate.”

Duke gagged, coughing out the whiskey he’d just taken a sip of. “I’m charging double for the next round, just because you made me think of that.”

Jordan looked ready to retort, but Jennifer put a hand on her arm, stopping the argument before it could start. “What now?” She asked. “Looks like the party’s over.”

“Definitely,” Audrey said. She didn’t want to go to another party… ever.

“There’s no way I’m sleeping after that,” Jennifer said.

“Same.”

“Same.”

“Me either.”

Audrey reached over the bar and grabbed a couple bottles at random. “Movie night at my place?”

“Hell yes,” Jennifer said, grabbing the cinnamon whiskey.

“Hey,” Duke said. “I know a terrible movie about werewolves and little red riding hood. I bet we could make one hell of a drinking game.”

“Absolutely not,” Nathan said. “Last time we played a drinking game you jumped off the Rouge and we both almost drowned getting you out.”

“I would love to see that,” Jordan said. “I’m in.”

“Come on,” Duke said to Nathan, pulling him close. “How are you going to stop me if you’re not there.”

“We both know I won’t stop you,” Nathan said, but he was smiling. “You’ll just drag me down with you.”

Duke arched one brow. “Well if that’s what you want—”

Nathan flushed while Jordan made exaggerated gagging noises.

“Movie it is,” Audrey said, taking Nathan’s hand. If he’d been planning on saying anything else, the contact shut him up.

The movie was, as Duke promised, absolutely terrible, but the alcohol was good, and the company was better. Sprawling out with her head on Duke’s shoulder and her hand in Nathan’s hair, and Duke’s feet in his lap made her feel normal again. They laughed at the movie and threw popcorn at Jennifer whenever she got too affectionate with Jordan, and then at Jordan when Jennifer put her in a good enough mood to take it, only to find that she had a bizarre talent for catching it in her mouth, even when she didn’t seem to be looking at them at all.

“The costume party was a good idea,” Audrey said during a lull in the movie.

“Not stellar in the execution,” Jennifer added, “But a good idea.”

“Don’t say execution,” Nathan said.

“Maybe next year—” Audrey stopped. She didn’t know what would happen next year. She didn’t know who she would be next year.

“We’ll do this again next year,” Nathan said stubbornly, as if he were daring the world to try and make it so that they couldn’t.

Jordan gave him a look that might have been fond in the right lighting. “Next year we should pick a better movie, and maybe skip the part where I turn into a ten-foot-tall monster.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this movie,” Duke said.

“And there’s nothing wrong with being a ten-foot tall monster,” Jennifer added. “It’s very festive.”

Jordan snorted and kissed her.

Audrey looked away, which put her nose against Duke’s neck, and since there were already people kissing in the room, she figured she might as well kiss him.

A loud, violent murder happened in the movie, which didn’t quite ruin the mood, but it stopped the kissing.

“What are we going to say tomorrow?” Jordan asked without looking away from the screen.

Audrey shrugged. “Candy laced with LSD?”

“Pesticides on pumpkins?”

“Halloween mask factory malfunction?”

None of them seemed too invested. It was tomorrow’s problem, and tonight, they were drunk and recovering and together, and maybe forming the hesitant beginnings of a new tradition.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ["Fuck Joss Whedon": a found poem of AO3 tags](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29397195) by [thenewbuzwuzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewbuzwuzz/pseuds/thenewbuzwuzz)




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